Jan 4, 2011

In a New Year's Eve letter sent to Governors Sonny Perdue and Nathan Deal, officers of the Georgia Green Party asked why the Georgia Department of Corrections withheld from Terrance Dean's family news of his condition and whereabouts. The letter asks that they "launch an investigation into whether the DoC's apparent efforts to conceal (Mr. Dean's) condition rises to the level of a criminal conspiracy". Reports conveyed by other Macon State Prison inmates and their families have revealed that on or about the 16th of December, as striking inmates were beginning to return to work, employees of the Corrections Department beat and injured the former Bibb County resident serving his seventh year on a 16 year sentence for armed robbery.

"The violent response to the inmates peaceful, non-violent strike is shameful," said Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary for the Georgia Green Party and managing editor for the weekly BlackAgendaReport.com. "Prison inmates deserve wages for work, educational and self-improvement activities, decent food and medical care. The state should facilitate, rather than obstruct contact with their families. They deserve human rights and a clear path back to being productive members of society. The institutional human rights abuses exposed by the peaceful prisoners strike severely compromise the moral authority of Georgia's correctional system."

Information obtained by the coalition suggests that Mr. Dean was assaulted by state employees in the aftermath of the inmate sit down strike.. . . .